Clever Hans
by S'TarKan
Summary: Set in 2050s Berlin, a teenage boy finds himself being chased, with a mysterious credstick, a painful head wound, and no memory of how he got either.
1. Chapter 1

His first clear memory is of being chased.

Actually, clear is a an overstatement. Everything was seen through a red haze of pain, his skull clenched in a vise of agony, every running step making flashes leap at the edges of his vision. If his stomach wasn't already achingly empty, the retching agony would have had him spewing it's contents on the roughly paved streets.

He's in the free city of Berlin, anarchist's paradise, but not a great place to be little more than a teenager, alone and hungry.

The air is cool, the evening overcast. Warmth runs through his long hair, down the side of his face, the pain centered in the scalp above his right ear. He doesn't remember how he got hurt, doesn't know who he is or why he is running down this grimy sidewalk. He has a vague feeling that something went wrong, and that's why they are chasing him. Perhaps he was trying to steal from them? Spy on them? It doesn't matter. If they catch him, he knows they will kill him.

He runs on, blood streaming down his face from an ugly scorched gouge in the side of his head. Even in pain, he moves fast. A woman coming out of a shop screams as he runs past, startling her. A white flash of bone is visible in the center of the ghastly wound. The sound makes him stumble as he looks back. Three large men, one of them with the stocky build of ork are still keeping up with him. He's not quite sure how he has been able stay ahead of them this long.

He tries to run faster, but the pounding of his heart is making his head throb and his vision blur in time with the rhythm. He comes to a street crossing as a car pulls up to make a turn. Without breaking stride he launches off of one foot and lands with the other on the hood of the old Daimler-Benz. The hood dents in under his weight, but his next running stride launches off the fender and he lands on the opposite curb. He doesn't pause to consider how high he had jumped with no warning.

He pounds down the twisting sidewalk, a loud crash and shouts erupting from behind him. Then shots. One of his pursuers may have tried to emulate him, and most prudent citizens travel armed these days. He doesn't look back.

The curve of the sidewalk takes him out of line of sight from the altercation, and he slows his pace slightly and looks back. No signs of pursuit. He slows to a jog, and looks for a place to get out of sight. He ducks into a narrow trash-strewn alleyway, then looks back around the corner. Still no sign of them. It looks like he lost them.

He leans his back against the dirty brick wall, scored by decades of acid rain. His lungs are working like a bellows, but he can feel his pulse slowing, much to the relief of his head. He gingerly runs his fingers through the bloody hair, wincing when he encounters the flap of scalp laid back by some unremembered violence. He can feel his knees start to tremble as the shock tries to take hold. He slides his back down the wall slightly, resting his palms above his knees and willing them not to buckle. There is something jabbing him in his pants pocket. He reaches into his pocket to adjust it and recognizes the shape of what he knows must be a cred-stick.

He's wondering how he is so sure what it is when the truncheon strikes him behind the left ear. The stick tumbles unnoticed from his hand into the junk at his feet.

On top of the exisitng trauma, his head explodes into a supernova of light. He tumbles bonelessly to the ground. He is barely aware of the large man standing over him. The lightshow still hasn't faded by the time he is grabbed by the collar of his grubby t-shirt and lifted up, his feet trailing on the damp cobblestones.

He is effortlessly slammed against the brick wall, affording new agony to his head, and the ork's rancid breath washes over him, redolent of sausage and onions. Ironically, the first clear thought in his mind is how hungry he is.

"Well, Clever Hans," the ork rumbles, "you led us on quite a chase. But you weren't quite clever enough, were you? It's not often Dieter misses a shot like that though, but your run is over, my rabbit... you've picked your last pocket."

He feels the ork roughly turn out his empty pockets.

"Hurm. Still being clever, yes? Now, if you tell us what you did with it, I can guarantee that you will feel very little of what will happen next. If you piss me off, I'll make it feel like a century. Now... which will it be?"

His mind feels like it's mired in tar, trying to sort out what is being said, trying to fill in the blanks.The ork takes this for resistance and shifts his grip from collar to throat. The muscles in the hairy forearms swell and he begins slowly, deliberately, strangling the teenager.

The boy's throat closes and he begins to struggle for breath. The need for air evaporates his daze, and his eyes focus on the grinning, tusked face of his murderer. The orks eyes are alight with rare pleasure - he enjoys killing, but it isn't often that his work lets him do it up close and personal like this... to watch the victims last struggles... to watch their eyes fill with fear... and rage? And something else...

In one convulsive move, the boy brings both of his slender wrists up just behind the burly ork's wrists. The sound of the ork's forearms snapping like matchsticks is unnaturally loud in the alley. The boy takes in a shuddering breath like a newborn as he brings both fists back down, fear-driven strength shattering the ork's sternum and driving the shrapnel through his heart.

It took almost five minute to find the credsitck again, keeping his eyes avert from the cooling body. Finally his fingers closed around it. The stick was black plastic with slivery fittings, complete with a coiling dragon logo at the top that seemed somewhat ominous.

The public cred-reader at an automated hotel confirmed that it was a certified cred-stick (Saeder-Krupp corp issue) with a value high enough to make him gasp. He confirmed the room rental and snatched the stick out of the reader before anyone around him could see the balance. He kept the stick balled in his fist as he walked over to the bank of entry doors. The serial number on the cred-stick unlocked the correct door and he stepped inside and locked it behind him.

Once inside he began to relax a little bit. The room was cramped by anyone's standards, with barely enought room for the single bed, trideo/telecomm unit, and tiny 'fresher cubicle. But it was his for the next 24 hours, and that made it a veritable palace to him.

The next morning, he felt considerably better. He could tell he was cleaner than he probably had been in a while. His clothes, though worn, were freshly laundered, and he'd cleaned up the wound on the side of his head as best he could. He was also full of vending machine stuffers and over-the-counter analgesic patches.

The scalp wound was still a worry though. There was no sign of infection, but it looked like it would probably need stitches. He didn't have any kind of identification, and he doubted he had any insurance, so a regular hospital was out of the question. He was able to locate a slightly run-down clinic on the Linder Strasse. The owner looked like a walking advertisement for the preservative benefits of alcoholism, but he let the boy in after seeing he carried a cred-stick.

When the old man asked him his name, there was an awkward pause before he answered the first thing that came to mind "Hans." The old man had evidently done less-than-entirely legal work before, because he read a lot more into that pause than was intended. He dispensed with any further question and led him into the surgical area.

There was no sign of infection yet, so, after clipping away a good bit of the hair, he settled for applying a wide-spectrum anti-bacterial spray, then reattaching the flap with self-dissolving surgical glue. He tried to use a more old-fashioned, and less expensive, stitching gun, but had problems getting it to thread the needle through. He apologized for the delay, then launched into a rant about the high prices of getting medical supplies into the city these days. Hans did not remark, figuring he was being softened up for the eventual bill.

As he finishes, the old man offers to check and recalibrate his cybereyes, in case they had gotten jarred by the impact. Hans declined in confusion, then glanced into a mirror. With a chill of dread, he realized why the old man had made his mistake. In his confusion, he simply handed over the cred-stick when the old man announced the bill. He was looking at the half crew-cut he was now sporting when the credit-stick was placed into a regular terminal with banking connections. The old man noticed something odd when he ran the cred-stick, aside from it's balance. There was an attached file. He looked edge-wise at his patient. The boy was still staring at the mirror and frowning, Ah, young men were so vain these days. I wonder what he carrying around on this stick...?

"OUT!"

Hans jumped at the shout that broke his reverie. The doctor had just ripped the cred-stick out of his computer and hurled it at him. He caught it reflexively as the old man shouted at him, his face mottled with apoplectic fury. "Who the hell do you think you are coming here like this! You bastard! You think I want to be mixed up in this? Get the hell out of here before I kill you myself!"

Hans backed away as the old man ripped open a drawer and pulled out an old, slightly bent bone saw. He turned and ran out of the clinic.

Hans, as he called himself for lack of anything better to use, used the cred-stick to get a haircut and some new clothes. The stylist at the salon took one look at him and did a double take. He just walked up and said "try to make this look good". As she got a closer look at the staples, she chuckled "well I guess getting a hole in your head would justify having a haircut that bad." To even everything out, she had to cut it all to that basic length, as long as it had been, this ended up spiking most of it straight up. At the counter, he saw a display rack of retro sunglasses. He picked out a pair of mirrored wrap-arounds... something called the Gibson look. He paid for it along with the haircut, making a point of making sure that he remained in control of the cred-stick at all times, and that it only went through financial readers.

The clothes were a little more expensive. He was pretty sure, all things considered, that his scalp wound had been from a bullet, and he couldn't count on only getting grazed again. He still had quite a bit of credit left when he visited The People's Self-Defense Armory. It was the closest place he could find in directory assistance, but it was apparently run by some of the local neo-Communists. Politics didn't stop them from charging thoroughly capitalistic prices, he noticed. He tried talk deeper and to act older than he thought he probably was. The glasses seemed to help too.

He picked up a "genuine American" Ares Predator that had probably been produced at a knock-off plant in Slovenia. It didn't really matter because he didn't know how to shoot.. or at least he didn't think he did. Mostly it was for intimidation factor. He had a vague plan forming in his mind, but it would take someone older and smoother than he was. However, he was all he had, so he'd have to wing it.

The clerk balked a bit when Hans, after some thought, picked out some ballistic cloth trousers, a vest with plates, **and** an armored jacket. "That's a lot of weight there, kid. It's going to slow you down a lot. Better lose the vest or the jacket."

Hans looked at him expressionlessly through the mirrorshades. How did they do this in the movies? "Both." he growled through clenched teeth. He resisted the urge to grind them.

"Hey, okay man, no problem, it was just a suggestion... no offense intended you know... if you don't mind the weight, well, it's your hoop, right?" He raised his hands palms out and spread them to indicate he was not going to argue. Some combat boots with steel toes joined his purchases in the bag he carried back to the hotel. He picked up a few other odds and ends on the way back, including a rucksack and a prepaid mobile phone.

That evening, he renewed the rental on the room and, wearing his new gear, took a trip into downtown Berlin.

Unglaubich! Was a decker bar, or at least it looked like one to Hans. Lots of neon tubing and chrome went into the decor, and almost everyone he saw go in or out had some obvious cyber-jacks. He walked up, trying not to act nervous.

The bouncer glared down at him, until he ran the credstick through the reader, and okayed paying the cover charge. It's amazing, he thought to himself, the difference that money makes. If you have it, you belong - you are a person now. The thought was more than vaguely troubling.

If the outside of Unglabich! was ultra-modern, the inside was ultra-future. The second and third floor levels were made of lucite, with the electrical, plumbing, and air conduits outlined in strings of flashing lights. The circular stairways were outlined in neon tubing that slowly cycled through all the colors of the spectrum. With the fog machines running and the music pounding loud enough to make his bones throb, the whole effect was rather like being trapped in a real-life sim-sense game. He noticed with a start that the wait-staff were all dressed in skin-tight plastic jumpsuits made of some clear plastic material with a liquid cyrstal matrix sandwiched between. The liquid crystal cycled between opaque and transparent in fractal patterns somehow related to the beat of the music. He felt his face grow slightly warm.

Hans worked his way through the crowd, gravitating toward the darker corners of the first floor. The second and third floors seemed primarily reserved as dance space, while the bottom floor was set up with a seemingly random scattering of tables and chairs. Several people were using the tables... some even had decks set up. A couple appeared to be playing strategy games or competitions of some sort. His eyes, however, were drawn to an altercation along the edge of the seated area near where he was leaning against the wall, trying to be unobtrusive. One of the waitresses had been cornered by a customer, a large husky man, whose obviously chromed jacks and pale skin contrasted with his bleached blond and bulging muscles that looked to have benefitted from a bio-sculpt session or two.

Hans was wondering if the bouncers were going to do anything when a slim figure from a nearby table walked up behind the large man and casually kicked his knees from behind, tumbling him to the floor.

"You know, Vladimir," she said in a conversational tone as she stood over him and the waitress flashed a quick smile of thanks and headed off for the bar, "just because everyone knows you are an immature asshole doesn't mean you have to prove it to everyone new that you meet..."

Vladimir climbed to his feet, glaring at her all the while. He took a step forward when she continued, "Do you remember the last time you got into it with me?" He stopped dead.

"If you don't want another email that'll turn your deck into a smoking paperweight, I suggest you behave... that is, unless you **like** having to etch new MPCP chips every fortnight?"

With a muttered obscenity, he stalked past her and headed for the door.

Hans eased over in that direction. The woman was tall and rangy, dressed in a well-worn leather jacket and pants, and a t-shirt that said _Wurtzburg Simsenz_ in neon script. Her hair was dark with what looked like red highlights in the dim light. Her eyes looked natural, but she had 3 prominent chrome datajacks arranged in a triangle at her left temple. She settled back into her seat and punched a button on her deck's keyboard. The small roll-up vid display resumed scrolling text. She started scanning this again, but looked up as he settled into the other seat at her table. She frowned. "Do I know you, liebchen?"

Hans flushed slightly at the address. He kept his voice even as he tried to assume a business-like tone. "I wish to pay you for five minutes of your time." Her sudden smirk made his blush deepen.

"Listen kid, I don't have time to play games. Why don't you run along and-"

"There is an encrypted file in the root of this cred-stick. I would like you to decrypt it, print it out for me, and keep five thousand for your time."

She raised an eyebrow, but accepted the cred-stick out of curiosity, if nothing else. Her face twisted into a frown after she inserted into her deck, ran a preliminary check, then started working on the file. Her fingers flashed across the keyboard, almost too fast to see. As she worked, she studied him under her furrowed eyebrows. "This is a lot of money for a simple decryption job. You have the funds to cover it, but why not buy your own deck for less than that, load some code-breaking expert system and do it yourself?"

"I'm not good with computers."

She nodded once. "And what's to keep me from taking all the funds off the chip? Or keeping the file and giving you some worthless text files?"

Hans paused. He knew he was being tested, and had a feeling this woman did not suffer fools gladly. "Someone who would do that wouldn't have cared about Vladimir abusing the waitresses, would they?" A little flattery probably wouldn't hurt, either.

She smiled once, faintly. "Not neccesarily, _tovarisch_. However, the world is a better place with such idealism. I am Magda. The encryption is not very sophisticated. I've got the correct general algorithym worked out. I have a 'soft brute-forcing the parameter combinations until the final result is intelligible. It should be only a few minutes."

"A pity that you will not have that long."

The voice came from behind Hans. He gritted his teeth as he silently remonstrated himself. He had been so focused on Magda, that he had let his awareness of his surroundings fade. Four large men in dark clothing and longcoats had worked their way across the floor, effectively isolating Magda's corner from the rest of the crowd. Hans cut his eyes left and right behind the mirror shades. People at adjacent tables were pointedly looking away or pointedly focusing only on their conversational partners. Nobody seemed to want to get the attention of the newcomers.

Magda looked more annoyed than anything else. "Look, Russiky," her voice dripped with contempt, "I told your employer that while his offer was flattering, I work strictly freelance. Do you understand what I am telling you?"

"Da, bitch" the one immediately behing Hans growled. "I also understand that no one says no to Ivanov." His voice dropped in volume. "Do not underestimate the reach of Vory v Zakone, even in this anarchist hellhole."

Hans recognized the old term for the Russian Mafia. No wonder people were studiously looking away.

"We can make life very difficult for people who are not... cooperative." He glanced down at Hans and smirked. "Or even for their kid brothers."

Magda, while more than willing to needle Hans herself, took exception to this. "That, you toad, is one of my clients. Do not interfere in my business unless you wish me to make your business my business, eh?"

He laughed coarsely and dropped his hand onto Han's right shoulder. In one quick motion, Hans rotated out from under the hand and out of his chair, ending up facing the man. With a growl the thug pulled his left arm back to backhand the impertinent child. Hans dropped into a fighting stance with feet spread and blocked the swipe with a counter-clockwise sweep of his left arm. His forearm struck the bone just above the Russian's elbow, snapping it with an audible crack.

He gasped, cradling his broken arm, staggering backwards, and barking something in Russian. His three companions immediately reached under their coats.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Hans drove forward off his back foot. He lunged forward, his extended fist sinking up to the wrist in the stomach of the closest one. This one folded and flew backwards, his fingers never having even reached the holster. Hans shifted his weight to his front leg, stepped forward, then pivoted away and back-kicked his heel into the head of a second thug, knocking him cold as he drew his gun.

The next instant a fusillade of sledgehammer blows showered his back, driving him to the floor. He heard the distinctive snap of one of the ceramic plates in the back of his jacket cracking down the middle. As he was thrown to the floor, the wind knocked out of him, but nothing worse, Hans realized that the last thug was considerably faster and obviously more dangerous than the others. Poor judgment there, he chided himself, as he went limp and lay still. Fortunately, the poor lighting in the club worked to his advantage, especially after the muzzle flashes.

"That little bastard... I'll blow his brains out myself." The uzi in the last gunman's hands was now covering Magda, who had come half out of her seat, her face gone pale under the flashing lights.

Hans willed himself to hold still even after getting booted in the ribs. From the corner of his barely open eye he watched as the spokesman awkwardly dug a pistol out of a shoulder holster with still-functioning hand. He finally got the safety turned off, but as he started to line it up on the back of Hans' head, the boy launched himself off the floor at the mobster. One hand twisted the gun hand until the wirst snapped, the other grabbed a handfull of the shirt and kept the mobster in front of him as he propelled both of them at the last gunman.

The third gunman, although startled, still moved with preternatural speed. He didn't fire at or through his superior, but did step back out of the path of the bull rush. Hans' legs were still pistoning against the floor as they accelerated. They mostly missed the their target, but the body of his would-be executioner did block his foe from easily bringing the Uzi around for a point-blank burst. Han's right hand flashed out, past a mis-timed block and connected solidly with the man's jaw, snapping his head back slightly. _It was like hitting a steel drum_, Hans thought. _He must be metal underneath..._

The first mobster, already sliding deeply into shock tumbled backwards to the floor as Hans let go. The boy's attention fully on the last gunman, his left hand flashed out at the wrist above the hand holding the uzi. Han's clamped down as hard as he could, to keep the submachine pointed away, and cocked his right hand back for another punch. With a sudden snapping noise, a long gleaming spike shot out of the back of the cyborg's right wrist, and he drove it into Han's ribs.

The spike found a seam in the jacket, dug into the vest beneath, but did not pierce the skin. Han's clamped his right arm down onto his opponent's arm and rammed his knee up into the man's midsection, exploding the breath out of him. The man pitched forward and Hans rammed his forehead into the man's face, snapping his nose and spraying blood.

As the man rocked backwards, Hans let go of the arm with the spike and tried to rip the uzi out of the man's right hand. Whether out of instinct or just pure viciousness, the mobster triggered a long burst that ricocheted off the ceiling and walls, setting off a chorus of screams and groans as the spent rounds spattered through the crowd. Hans screamed and the firing was cut off with a screech of metal and plastics. The hand holding the wrist of what had turned out to be a cyber-arm had crushed the casing making the hand short out, spasm, and drop the firearm.

Hans could vaguely feel the other arm slamming the spike into his side through the mostly ruined jacket. Holding on with his left hand, he pounded his balled up right fist into the murderous face above him. His hand went numb after the first dozen impacts, but the cries of the wounded drove him on. After a few seconds, the pounding in his side ceased as he felt the bonelacing separate and shatter under his fist. After a last blow sent shards of cyber-eye casing into the air, he stopped and stepped back numbly. The man was on his knees, but unconscious. The only thing holding him upright was the Hans holding onto his left arm. He let go, having to pop his fingers out of the grooves they had crushed into the cyberlimb casing, and the cyborg crumpled to the ground.

Hans stared numbly at the destruction he had wrought. He flinched and spun when he felt a touch on his shoulder. Magda was behind him, her deck packed up and hanging from a strap on her shoulder. She was wearing mirrorshades, so he couldn't see her eyes right now. That was probably a good thing. "Let's get the hell out of here, okay?"

He nodded.

Magda led him out through a milling crowd of panicing club-goers. Some of the club employees did a double-take when they saw Hans, but a decisive head-shake from Magda warned them off. A back hallway near the bathrooms led to a fire exit and an alley lined with dumpsters. They followed this passage through the block and ended up on a side street near a small _gasthaus_ where Magda said she had a bolt-hole.

Her bolt-hole turned out to be a small, but cluttered efficiency apartment under the attic. The three by six meter space was dominated by a sofa-bed, a large trideo unit, and an elaborate electronics work-bench. She waved him toward the fresher unit in the corner. When Hans looked in the mirror, he realized why people at the club were staring at him. His hands were soaked with blood, almost none of it his own, and there were drying spatters all over his front. He shuddered and quickly rinsed off the worst of it. The knuckles of his right hand were a little scraped up. He pulled a few slivers of metal out. He recognized the chromium finish from the last thug's cyber-eyes.

When he turned back around, Magda had folded back the bed and was sitting on the couch, her deck in her lap. One of the folding chairs under the work-bench had been pulled out and now faced the couch. Hans carefully sat in the chair. He noticed that Magda had a large-calibur handgun sitting on the cushion next to her. It wasn't pointed at anyone, but it was, he noticed, within easy reach.

"Okay, liebchen. Now what's going on?"

He shrugged. "I don't like people putting their hands on me. He tried to hit me. I like that even less."

"And you apparently like getting shot even less."

He shrugged again. He was still a little numb about the whole thing. His back was still throbbing when he shifted so the broken ceramic plates in the jacket would stop poking him.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were an assassin sent to knock off Ivanov's little bagman. Someone who can handle themselves like you do can generally stop confrontations like that before they even start."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you act like a scared adolescent, then you tear through Ivanov's goons like a dikoted buzzsaw" Her features twisted with distaste."You really suckered them in, but it's a brutal way to make a living, chummer."

Hans choked on his protests, then stopped. What he had done to them was pretty brutal.. but he'd been fighting out of fear.

Magda frowned at him as he grew silent. "But that's not the case is it? You really don't know do you?"

Hans blew out a long breath. "No, not really. I've mostly been acting out of reflex."

"Are you wired up?"

Hans shook his head.

"Hmmm... if you were, it would be easier to assess what you can do. You must be an Adept. I may know someone who can address that. In the meantime, you just need to know how to handle the social end."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you act like a scared kid, people will assume they can push you around. If you act like someone who will rip them to pieces, then you won't have to. When Boris put his hand on you, you went from totally passive to full attack mode. He didn't really have time to figure out he was doing something stupid. You need to either escalate slower, or establish your initial boundaries a bit farther out."

Hans nodded slowly, intrigued. She made it sound almost... scientific? Magda shifted on the couch, leaning back, and ran her fingers through her hair, brushing it back off her forehead.

"Part of it is also what my merc friends call 'situational awareness'. You sat with your back facing most of the floor, including the entrance. A real pro will sit so he has all the entrances and exits covered... and if he can't he will use any reflective surfaces or shadows to keep track of who is around him or in his blind spot. You were suprised by those goons, which marked you in their eyes as a harmless amateur - not someone to be taken seriously. If you had done that turn and pivot move as they walked up, it would have marked you in their eyes as someone serious."

"Another piece of it," she continued, "is having the right... hmmm.. an Amerikaner friend of mine called it his 'game face'. If you can face down people who are trying to push you, you can avoid dismembering them, da? It saves in the long run, because if you are always getting into fights, no one will want to deal with you."

Hans nodded, but a question occured to him that he had to ask. "I see your point. But... um, why are you helping me with this?"

She smiled. "Well, for one, that little mess did buy me some breathing room with Ivanov. He's going to think twice about sending another group of thugs to "talk" to me after what happened to Boris and his boys." She saw his confusion, and continued, "Yes, as far as the Vory are concerned, what happened was an effective demonstration. But we are not all mobsters and thugs. Most of my colleagues consider themselves _professionals_, and that kind of public fracas is _nulkulturny_ - non-cultured - in that society. That's another important lesson - the rules that apply within one society do not always apply in others. The only universal truth is that there are none." She smiled again. The boy was a good listener. Suprisingly attentive, for his age. No... he was older than he looked. Or acted, it seemed.

"Secondly, I enjoy having the chance to tell someone all the things I wish someone had taught me when I was getting started. I made a lot of mistakes... we all do.. but a lot of them were stupid things. I look back and I am embarrassed at my mistakes, you see? No? Heh.. you will. Eventually."

She leaned forward and reached out with her left hand. Her fingertips traced the edge of his ear, down the line of his jaw. "Besides, I like you, Liebchen." She eased forward off the couch, the leather pants rustling against the fabric. Her other hand came up to rest on the other side of his face. She kissed him firmly on the mouth.

Hans woke up confused. He wasn't in the hotel room. He sat up abruptly and looked around the cluttered apartment/repair shop, then saw Magda smiling at him. She was sitting in the folding chair, wearing a pair of panties and a t-shirt, splitting her attention between the muted trideo unit and the roll-up monitor on her deck.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Liebchen. You had a busy day, so I let you catch up on your rest."

She smiled archly as Hans felt his face redden again. He fumbled around the floor around the sofa-bed, locating his ballistic singlet and pants. The jacket was basically totaled, he could see now, and the vest had large gouges ripped out of it under the right arm-hole. He sighed as he pulled on the vest, but didn't latch it up yet.

"You certainly believe in being well-armored, don't you." She got up and stretched her back. Hans glanced at her and then away.

"Well, I don't like being shot all that much." He shrugged.

"Well, no one does, but not everyone is willing to carry around as much extra weight as you seem to be willing to."

"Not many people seem to have my talent for getting shot." He touched the healing scar above his ear.

"True... at least it doesn't seem to affect your agility... or endurance..." She smiled at him again.

Hans felt his blush deepening despite his best efforts... he grimaced and let out an exasperated breath.

Magda laughed and walked over to Hans, resting her forearms on his shoulders and lacing her fingers behind his neck. She worked the heels of her hands into the tense muscles on the base of his neck and pulled his head forward until their foreheads touched. He noticed that without her boots they were roughly the same height.

"Always so serious, you. I had fun. You had fun. It was good, da?"

"Yes."

"Then what is the problem? I mean.. wait, it wasn't your first... was it ?"

"I... well, i don't know. I think so. Oh hell..."

She leaned back so she could get a good look at his face. "What do you mean you don't know?"

"Sigh... I mean, that right now my memories start with about 3 days ago. I was running, carrying that damn credstick, with the side of my head all torn up and a bunch of goons chasing me. I don't remember anything before that. I don't know where I learned to fight, it just seems to come to me instinctively when I'm threatened. I don't know why I'm stronger than normal. None of this makes any sense to me... that's why I was trying to find out about that file on the cred-stick. One of the guys chasing me implied I had stolen it, or that it was the reason I was shot."

"Wow... that's quite a story. No, I believe you... it just sounds like something out of a lurid sim-sense game or something. Very dramatic and mysterious. You are an exiled prince, no?"

Hans shrugged. He was starting to get used to her sense of humor.

"Well, Prince, lets take a look at that file. The decrypt actually finished a while ago, but we were a little too... busy... to notice."

Hans just ignored that.

"Hmmm... text file mainly.. some attached graphics. Here you go.." She started handing him sheets as soon as they emerged from a laser-printer. "Looks like a mission briefing of some sort. One of these docs is the itinerary for some visiting corporate type... looks like some high-roller from Renraku is attending a conference at the Daimler-Benz building. Is this an extraction or a hit? Ah... here we go. He's a director of the Renraku Red Samurai division.. looks like Daimler-Benz is going for the combat-vehicles contract for the Red Samurai... Interesting. And so.. ah, here it is. Oh, that's nice. Barbarians." her voice went flat at the end.

"What?" Hans noticed her eyes grow hard and her lips compress into a thin line.

"The operation is to kidnap his daughter, who is also travelling with him. She's 12 years old and his only family. If he wants to see her alive again, he has to kill the deal with Daimler-Benz. If he doesn't, they're going to send him a sim-sense recording of them raping and killing her." The last sheet was a high-resolution picture of a young girl in an elaborately-patterned kimono.

"That's despicable!" Hans snarled. It was completely irrational, but his hands were shaking slightly with rage.

"Worse... there's notes from their Johnson. Even if the order does get cancelled, they aren't going to return her. Instead of risking her being able to describe any of them, they are going to make a little extra money selling her to organleggers." Her mouth twisted in distaste.

Hans let the sheet slip out of his hands before he tore it apart. His mind kept picturing the innocent face, screaming in pain as she is cut into pieces to be sold on the black market. His hands twisted involuntarily into claws, then balled into white-knuckled fists. He heard a grinding sound for a few moments before he realized it was his own molars. Magda looked up and flinched away.

"Calm down! This isn't due to happen for a couple of weeks yet. She's scheduled to attend some cultural reception at their Messerschmitt-Kawasaki subsidiary ... they don't appear to be involved though. Looks like someone leaked the motorcade route... hmmm..."

"Can you tell if this is the only copy of the data that those bastards have?"

"I don't think.. no it isn't. The creation dates on all the files are the same. These files were all copied over from somewhere else at the same time."

"Hmmm... will they still do the job if they aren't getting paid?

Magda sighed. "Well, 2 things.. One, you can't back out on a deal once you take the money unless you were lied to. Even if your employer let you live, the fixers would never give you work again. It's professional suicide for a 'runner. Two, this cred-stick didn't have enough money on it to bankroll a job of this magnitude. Either you lifted someone's individual share, or you got the petty cash fund."

Hans frowned.

"Look, I can leave an anonymous tip with Daimler-Benz security. I don't have any contacts there, but we can at least give them what they call a "heads-up", da?"

"How likely are they to take that seriously?"

"Probably not very... unless I include the files themselves... no, wait... Let me see. Oh, this is very not good."

"What?" Hans was picking up on some of her anxiety now, and it wasn't helping his mood at all.

"Some of these resources, especially this itinerary, indicate that whoever is setting this up has high-level sources within Daimler-benz."

"Ah, so..."

"Right. Either D-B security buries the warning because it would raise some serious questions about their own operation, or the mole in D-B can kill it. And even if they can't completely kill the warning, the mole can have the operation delayed or change the location to compensate."

"How about we warn Renraku then?"

"Same issues... some of this data doubtlessly came from sources within the Megacorp. Where do you think the picture of the daughter came from? Maybe someone wants to get her father out of the way."

"Lovely. How about I just warn him directly?"

"I don't think he has a listed telecom code, liebchen."

"Dammit." Frustration was making him even angrier. It didn't matter. He was _not_ going to let this happen, no matter what he had to do.

Magda frowned at him. Honestly, he was a little scary when he got like this. She was not qute sure what she had gotten herself involved with here. She was pretty sure that he had even less idea, though. "Well, I'm not the one planning the operation, so glowering at me is not doing you any good. However, if you can bottle that look and use it next time you get into a situation, I guarantee it will make people unsure of themselves think twice about pushing things with you..." She retrieved her pants from the floor and pulled them on.

Hans shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I just can't accept that we can know all about this and not be able to do something about it."

"Well," she answered philosophically as she laced up her boots, "I can ask around and see if anyone I know has a trustworthy contact within either of the corps."

There was a loud chirp that startled Hans. Magda reached into her jacket and extracted a small phone. "Da... yes. Oh no... Yes. Yes, I will. Thank you, my friend. I will. Immediately." She disconnected the call and looked quickly around the room.

"There is a wild rumor going around that you are a yakuza hit-man who kidnapped me to extract what I know about Ivanov's operations. Ivanov has put a large price on both our heads. We need to leave immediately."

"I can't leave this thing hanging."

"I can do what I can do from anywhere. What can _you_ do to stop this anyway?"

"With this," he picked up the printouts, "I know where and when it will go down." They locked gazes for a moment. Then Magda looked away and started packing up her deck.

"You are really going to try it, aren't you, you crazy bastard? A professional shadowrunning team is going head to head with 2 corporate security forces, and you want to stick your nose into the middle of that?"

Hans paused before answering. He felt he was on the edge of something bad here. "It's more like I have to. Magda, I-"

"No. Shut up. You are a crazy fool, and no matter how good or how strong crazy fools are, they always manage to get themselves killed in the end. I am getting my ass out of town before Ivanov puts a bullet through it, so I won't be here to witness your glorious martyrdom. Sorry." She looked up and he saw that there were tears standing in her eyes.

"I have no intention of - "

Hans was cut off wave of Magda's hand. A small red light had started flashing above the door. She grabbed his head and whispered in her ear, "Motion sensor - someone is in the hallway." The flashing resolved into a pattern of three quick pulses, followed by a pause. "Three heat sources," she whispered.

The flashing pattern continued for several seconds. A second yellow light started to flash. "Someone is trying to hack the maglock," she whispered.

Hans whispered a question as he closed the latches on the front of his armored vest, "are the walls armored?"

"No."

_Well_, he thought to himself, _in the trideo shows they always stand up right against the wall next to the door, so..._ He got a running start and hurled himself into the wall, arms outstretched, just to the right of the door.

The plaster and wood slats gave way a lot easier than he had anticipated, and he carried the two thugs he collided with through the wall on the other side of the hallway in a blizzard of splinters and plaster dust. Hans rolled backward into a squat. One guy was out cold, the other would never wake up from a broken neck. A large hand closed over the back of his head and hauled him bodily off his feet and back into the hallway.

The hand was attached to a large troll, well over 3 meters tall and massing the better part of a ton. The behemoth was dressed similar to the Vory thugs, in dark formal shirt and trousers under a dark overcoat. Only this overcoat would have been sufficient keep the rain off a family of four. The troll whipped his arm up and down, slamming Hans into the ceiling and floor, alternating.

There was a series of loud bangs from the hole next to the door. Magda had leaned around the corner and was firing the heavy pistol into the troll's side. His other long arm whipped out with surprising speed and backhanded her. She flew backwards into the opposite wall and crumpled to the ground, unmoving.

The floor was holding up better than the ceiling to the battering. Hans got his feet under him on the next swing and braced himself, then twisted out of the troll's grip. He spun around in a combat stance. The troll smiled and aimed a swipe at his head. Hans ducked under it and hooked a round-kick into the troll's knee. The troll didn't even pause, and Hans saw the following upper-cut too late to do anything about it.

The impact was roughly analagous to being hit by a truck. Hans was hurled off his feet and down the length of the corridor. The window at the end was barred on the outside, but that didn't make much difference. Hans felt the world spin crazily for a moment before he realized that he was outside the building. The pavement rushing up brought this realization home to him.

The stunning impact drove all the breath out his lungs and his vision blurred for a moment. Only the thought that Magda was still up there with the troll kept him clinging to consciousness. Still unable to draw breath, he nonetheless rolled to his knees and staggered to his feet. A car honked at him but he ignored it and limped to the door of the _gasthaus_. In the lobby, a man was holding a gun on the desk attendant. His eyes widened when he saw Hans. He spun and got a shot off before an iron-hard hand gripped his throat and slammed the back of his head into the lobby wall.

Between the vest and the fact that his entire chest was throbbing from the earlier punch Hans couldn't even feel the bullet impact. His lungs unhitched and he was able to get air in with sudden gasps, but he was still pretty shaky. Magda was still up there. He staggered up the stairs, nonetheless taking them two at a time.

He heard some crashing earlier, but it got ominously quiet as he reached the final landing. His breathing was mostly normal by now. When he got to Magda's apartment, it was a shambles. The electronics bench was up-ended and shoved half-way through a wall. The expensive trideo rig was in pieces. Magda was in a crumpled heap, sprawled half on the bed. The troll was bent over her with a large serrated knife. Hans noticed an open ice-chest on the floor nearby, with dry-ice vapors wafting from the open top. Magda was bruised up and bloody, her pants half torn off and her t-shirt cut open down the middle, but she appeared to still be breathing.

"Hey asshole! I'm not done with you yet!"

The troll whipped around quickly, eyes widening. Hans noted that. The bastard pretended to be a lot slower than he really was. That trick would not work again. He watched as the Vory assassin pivoted and brought the knife around into a fighter's grip, parallel to the forearm. He advanced the knife with circular slashes. Hans pivoted away from these, but left his middle slightly open. There! The troll finally reversed his grip and went for a lunge. Hans carefully timed his block, but still barely made it in time. The knife edge of his hand struck the flat of the blade and snapped it off at the hilt. This further surprised his opponent, and gave him time to rotate clear before the follow-up blow. The kick was late and Hans managed to step inside and block most of it with his upper arm against the troll's knee. The impact still drove his feet into the floor and ripped the carpet. He still kept his feet though, and drove a lunge-punch into the troll's midsection. The groin was too obvious a target and too easily armored.

Hans felt ceramic plate crack under his knuckles, but knew the ballistic weave, not to mention the troll's own tough calcified tissue and probable cyberware would dissipate much of the blow. He twisted his hips back the other way and whip-cracked his spine as his arms swapped positions in a lighting-fast reverse punch. That time he felt the troll move slightly backward. As those massive hands reached for him again, Hans leaped backwards and clear. The troll threw his knife hilt to the ground as his other hand rubbed at his stomach. He'd at least felt that last one.

The troll also did not seem to be overly blessed with creativity, either. He stepped forward and tried the same two-punch combo that he'd used to defenestrate Hans earlier. Hans ducked the first one as before, but as the follow-up started; he slipped backwards and rolled onto his back before the hay-maker connected. He did, however, grab the troll's wrist and yank backwards. Surprised at both the move and Hans' strength, the troll staggered forward off-balance. As he rolled onto his shoulders, Hans doubled up his legs and braced himself. As the troll started to fall forward, Hans drove both his heels into the already-bruised midsection and launched the startled assassin into the air. The troll went head-first through the first wall without even slowing. Hans rolled back forward and did a kip-up back onto his feet. He advanced on the half-stunned troll, on his hands and knees in the wreckage of the apartment next door.

Hans punched him hard in the face with one hand, then the other. When the troll reared back and covered his face with his arms, Hans struck downwards at his midsection. He kept up a rain of hard, stinging blows, keep the troll of balance and staggering backwards on his knees. Every time he tried to get onto his feet, Hans would kick him hard enough to knock him off balance again, usually pushing him even farther back. Finally, they reached Hans's goal, at which point he stepped back, got another running start and slammed himself directly into the off-balance troll again. This time the impact carried them through another wall and out into the open space in the middle of the building's stairwell. Hans rode him all the way to the bottom to a bone-jarring impact. The troll stopped moving after that.

Hans staggered back up the stairs one more time. Magda wasn't stirring. He got a wet cloth and cleaned her face. She moaned. He looked aound the wrecked apartment. He found her deck, a little battered but in one piece, under the workbench. He threw some of her clothes in a bag. He slung the deck on one shoulder and the bag on the other. He paused for a moment, then gathered up the scattered printouts, folded them up and shoved them under his vest. Then he picked Magda up and carried her out of there.

After they cleared the _gasthaus_, Hans stuck to back alleys and stayed out of sight until twilight fell. He found a red-light motel near the Slippery with a desk clerk sufficiently buzzed on dream-chips that he assumed that the semi-conscious Magda was a drunken prostitute that Hans had hired. Hans paid for a full 12 hour stay, which elicited a knowing leer at the implied boast.

Hans laid Magda out on the bed, and put an ice-pack on the puffy bruise covering half her face. She was visibly agitated and kept half-deliriously groping around her. Hans held her hand for a while. Then, on a sudden impulse he moved her deck onto the bed so it was in reach of her other hand. When her hand touched the keys, she hooked her fingers around the edge of it and visibly relaxed.

She woke up a few hours later, on a strange bed, her face cold and clammy from the icepack and her head ready to split in two. One hand was on her deck, the other was being held by Hans, who had fallen asleep sitting up in a chair pulled up next to the bed. _Magda, dear,_ she asked herself, _how the **hell** do you get yourself into these situations?_

Hans woke up as she stirred. Half her face was purpling from a massive bruise, and she moved like she was in a lot of pain. He checked the analgesic patches on her fore-arm. She was getting as strong a painkiller as he could get into her legally, and the color-band on the patches indicated that they were still releasing at full strength.

"Well," Magda said weakly, "I suppose I should be lucky to be alive. Remind me to take up body-surfing on the Autobahn. Sounds like a less dangerous hobby." She exhaled sharply as she sat up.

"Look," Hans started, "I'm sorry I didn't get back there sooner. That last guy was faster than he looked, and after he knocked me out the window I had to run back up and I-"

"Out the window?"

"Yeah... that troll had a wicked left. Knocked me right through the bars. I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to leave you up there with that animal, but-"

"Liebchen, my apartment was 4 stories up." She turned a little bit, bad as her back ached, to get a better look at his face in the yellowish light from the nightstand next to the bed. "Did you catch the windowsill or something?"

"No, I was too slow. That's why I took so long." Hans pressed his lips into a thin line and looked down and away. The pain she was in was mainly his fault. If he hadn't-

"So what broke your fall?

"The sidewalk." He shrugged. "Look, I mean it, I'm sorry. If I hadn't screwed up, I would have taken care of him in the hallway and you wouldn't be all busted up." It took him a moment to realize what the sound was. For a second he thought she was spasming or having a delayed hemorrhage from her injuries. Then he realized she was laughing.

"Heh... the sidewalk broke your fall. That's a good one. By all rights you should be in worse shape than me, Liebchen. And stop apologizing. You probably saved my life today. Ivanov was going to make his move eventually - I'm just lucky there was a wild card in the deck when he decided to play his hand." She smiled crookedly at him, then winced as the bruise flexed. "I need to leave town. The Vory are not to be trifled with, and my work for them has allowed me to see a bit too much. I have friends who will put me up, and most of my funds are in Swiss accounts. I see you grabbed my deck... did you by any chance see a small black leather case? It was on the work bench?"

Hans shook his head.

She shrugged. "No matter, I can recompile the utilities on most of those chips. I have working copies of most of my tools in here." She patted the deck almost affectionately. "You grabbed the important part, Liebchen, so stop looking so miserable. I can move anywhere and be back on my feet within a month. The more interesting question is what are you going to do?"

Hans paused. Part of him wanted to ask if he could go with her... but she hadn't really offered that as an option had she? He wasn't even sure if he could be any kind of help in her type of work anyway. Besides, he had some unfinished business. He slid the folded printouts out of his vest.

Magda looked at what he held in his hand and sighed. She might have wanted him to come with her, but he hadn't asked. Besides.. she had a feeling he would find her kind of business a bit too boring... as she would no doubt find the kind of work he appeared to be made for a bit **too** exciting. _Da_, she thought, _he is going to see quite a bit of that, I have no doubt, And he is so young. I'm old enough to be his... older sister._ "I see you are going to continue on that. Very well," she said, assuming a business-like tone, "there is not much I can do to assist you with that kind of job. Actually, the kind of thing I am good at would be getting you the kind of information that you already hold in your hand. I will however, introduce you to some people that I think you should meet."

Hans kept a poker-face as she continued to speak, outlining her logistical contacts in Berlin, and who she knew was good at what. Despite the coldness of her voice, he would later realize, she was giving him a priceless introduction into the Berlin shadows. And if it did cut to the bone, and if one's eyes grew a bit moist behind the mirrorshades, well, that was what they were there for, wasn't it?


	2. Chapter 2

Hans saw Magda off at Tempelhoff Airport. A couple of days on painkillers and blood-thinners and she could walk with only a slight limp. She was travelling light, her deck, a couple of changes of clothes in a carry-on bag, and headware memory full of account codes, as she joked on the way to the airport. Hans was nervous about the Vory making another run at her, but that was why she booked a flight that left in the middle of the day from Tempelhoff. Saeder-Krupp controlled the field and kept heavy security on hand in case anyone tried anything untoward in the terminal. It was easy, she explained, to swim with the sharks, if you know how to play them off against each other. Knowing how to do that, she claimed, was the real secret to being a successful professional shadowrunner.

They had discussed all this and more in the last two days. Now they were quiet as they sat in the terminal, waiting for her flight to be called. Finally, the loudspeakers announced flight 423 to Moscow with connections to Novosibirsk and Vladivostok. They stood.

"Hans," she said, using his name for the first time, "I want you to be careful - or at least as careful as you can be." She smiled. "I started a rumor that you were a bodyguard I hired from out of town to keep Ivanov at a distance while I wrapped up my business in Berlin. That should keep him off your back to some extent after I am gone, da? There is little profit in pursuing the guard after the treasure is gone. Now. If you ever get on Shadowland I can be contacted at RedMagda66. I check that maildrop every so often, so if you ever manage to swing access, you can contact me. In the mean time, I expect to hear all about the mayhem and craziness you will be stirring up in a few of days. I'm almost looking forward to it." Her smile grew wider as her eyes grew moist. She placed her hands on either side of his face. "I want you to be careful, both for your sake and that little girl's. But you know what? I know you will find a way." With that she kissed him fiercely, then whirled and strode quickly to the jetway, leaving him standing there bemused.

He stayed long enough to watch her flight take off into the lowering twilight. His emotions were a confused morass. As the sky grew darker, he slowly got them back under control. Finally, he took a deep breath and blew it back out again. He was once again alone. There was no one to watch his back anymore, but at the same time there was no one else that he had to watch out for. It was a curious trade-off, but not one that he found he preferred.

As he headed back into the downtown area where he was currently renting, he noticed something unusual on the U-bahn subway. The subway car was about half-full, but no one seemed to be willing to sit closer than about 2 meters away from him. He wasn't dressed that unusually. Boots, jeans, vest, and a new long coat, all in a matte black. Magda had suggested a long-coat instead of a jacket. Tailored appropriately, it made him look taller. More importantly, it was difficult to tell if he was carrying any sort of weapon under it. Maybe it was his new-found wariness in how he sat. All the entrances to the car were within his field of vision. He was still working on his situational awareness, but being in a city where one of the local mobs might still want him dead was proving to be a wonderful motivator.

He got off at the stop in the Potsdam district according to the directions that one of Magda's friends had given him. He straightened his coat and sauntered down the well-lit street. At the corner he looked idly around. No one seemed to be paying much attention to him, so he went ahead and cut down the narrow alley that led to a warehouse block. He swore he could feel eyes on him as he made his way down the steadily darkening path. He kept his hands clearly in view. Finally, a voice broke the silence.

"Halt. State your business."

"Herr Wurmzel sent me."

"Enter the door to your right."

Hans turned to the right and noticed that the inset door on one of the big warehouse sliding doors was slightly ajar. He touched it lightly with his fingertips and it creaked open. He slipped through the opening without touching the frame. Once on the other side, a bright spotlight snapped on, blinding him. He was shoved aside as the door was slammed shut and latched. He squinted behind the shades and slowly raised one hand to shade his eyes.

"Hold it right there, kameraden. Wurmzel's name will get you through the door. Staying is another matter entirely."

Hans didn't see much to say here, so he waited. The moment dragged out.

"Heh. You don't say much do you."

Hans shrugged, "You haven't given me much reason to yet."

"Frag this," another voice cut in harshly, "This punk stinks to high heaven. We should just dust him now."

"Calm yourself, Herr Spike. If we start randomly disposing of people who say they are sent by our _very good friend_ Wurmzel, we might annoy that gentleman. And then where would you get your exit visa? No, we will find out what the little one wants. And then I shall decide what we will do about that? Have I made myself clear, Herr Spike?"

"I still think he looks like a cop.. some kind of canary."

"That may be the case, but we do not go randomly killing people because of what we think they may or may not be. This is not your Detroit, Herr Spike, and we move with a bit more deliberation here."

"I think you are taking a risk here."

"That may be, but it is my risk to take, yes?"

Through this exchange, as they discussed the pros and cons of killing him as if he was not there, Hans stayed perfectly still, balanced on the balls of his feet, but not moving an inch. He was also waiting for his eyes to adjust to the glare. He could also feel himself being studied dispassionately. If they were trying to provoke him into rash action he was not going to give them the satisfaction. He'd also been warned that he would likely be subjected to some form of hazing... especially after he revealed the reason for his visit.

"So, little one. You do not care that Spike here wants to, what is it? "Dust you"? Let me guess, you do not fear death, yes?" The deeper voice that had greeted him was mildly mocking. As he squinted, he could make out two large shadowy blotches in the glare in front of him.

"All fear death. I just don't think I'm going to meet it tonight." He could hear a snort from the direction of the shorter of the two figures.

"What are you hoping to gain tonight then?"

"I have come here seeking training." That elicited a chuckle from the larger figure. Actually both of them were quite large, one of them just a little huger than the other.

"Roland, he's just fragging with you! I'll rip out his lungs!" The smaller one started forward, but the larger one held out an arm, stopping him.

"You realize what you ask?"

"Yes, Herr Wurmzel said that you could consider this service in lieu of your monthly favor to him."

"You must have some obligation hanging over him," deep rumbling voice mused. Actually it was a favor that Wurmzel had owed to Magda. "What I meant," he continued, "is more in the nature of the... personal consequences to yourself."

Hans nodded once. His vision was mostly clear, though he still saw them silhouetted against the spotlight. "Very well, Spike... see what he can do."

The smaller figure surged forward, lunging a deceptively fast right hand at Han's face. Hans was expecting the attack, but he still had trouble getting out of the way, as he blurred to the left and pivoted into the attack, he felt his boots slide slightly on the dusty concrete. The horny knuckles barely grazed the edge of his ear as he brought his hands up. The palm of his left hand slammed into the bent elbow as his vertical right forearm made contact with his opponent's wrist. Hans continued the pivot, bending the arm slightly as he slammed his body into the troll's right hip.

Instead of coming off his feet and being thrown face-first into the door, Spike gave a grunt and whipped his trapped arm out and snapped Hans loose like frisbee. The young man went flying, skidding to a halt 10 meters away on one foot, one knee, and one outstretched hand.

Now that he was not looking into the spotlight, he could see that his opponent was a fairly large troll with blong hair gathered back into a pony-tail. He was dressed in biker leathers with some gang colors he didn't recognize. Both ears were pierced, with earrings that looked like silver bullets. The blue eyes under the bony brow ridges were fierce-looking, but appeared to be natural. "Heh, you got sand, trying to go hand to hand with me, smoothie." Spike laughed as he turned toward Hans.

Hans launched out of his crouch and charged at the troll. Spike spread his feet slightly and brought both hands up and together in a swift motion. Hans ducked his head down and bunched up his shoulders as the troll brought his clasped hands down on the middle of Hans back with thunderous force. Braced as he was and expecting the blow, he still stumbled as he put the longcoat's reinforced right shoulderpad into the pit of the troll's stomach. It was like running into a concrete wall, but Hans recovered his footing and kept driving forward.

Spike laughed out loud, though he was suprised the boy was still on his feet. He raised his right hand to aim a blow at the boy's head when he felt the kid's hands digging into his pant legs. He felt an odd sensation that he didn't recognize for a moment. As he started moving backwards he realized that the little runt had actually lifted his feet off the ground and was bearing him backwards!

Hans didn't listen to the laughter, or the stunned gasp. He was concentrating on accelerating the two of them as fast as he could. The quicker he got some speed up the harder it would be for Spike to break the hold without getting slammed into a floor or ceiling.There was a loud bang and the world tilted crazily for a second as he realized he'd just gotten hit in the side of the head by a fist that was larger than his entire head. He held on and buried his head deeper into the troll's midsection, to make it harder to hit directly. The next blow came from the other side, but was partially absorbed by the Troll's jacket and Han's shoulder.

Finally, the troll got clever and hooked his foot into Han's knee as he was driving it forward to take another running step. As low as he was keeping his center of gravity, carrying Spike he was still ferociously top-heavy. They toppled to the side, still moving forward at a good clip. Hans let got of the troll's legs and, after a stunning impact, they slid to a stop with the troll on the bottom.

Hans reared up and slammed to sledgehammer blows into the troll's face. Blood burst from a bloodied nose. Spike roared with fury and arched his back up off the floor, even as one arm swept Hans off his chest. Spike rolled to the side and ended up with a hand on the boy's throat and most of his weight pinning him to the floor.

"Try to make me look stupid, will you, you lousy roundear punk!" The Troll growled in English. A drop of blood fell and splashed onto a lens of the mirrorshades below him. "You made my nose bleed, you little shit! I'm going to kill you slowly!"

"Spike.." Roland began, but the younger troll was beyond listening.

Hans couldn't breath, his chest was crushed beneath the troll's bulk. As hard as he tensed the muscles in his neck, the horny talons were slowly digging their way on to cut off the bllod to his brain. If he passed out he wasn't sure he'd ever wake up. He'd hurt the troll's pride, perhaps damaged his place here, and the fight had turned deadly serious. His left hand was trapped under the troll's chest, but he was able to work his right one free. He grabbed the troll's wrist, digging his fingers into the bones, trying to find some weakness to make him let go. It was like trying to find a weak point in a steel girder. He dug his heels into the concrete floor, working for leverage, bracing against his shoulders, pushing up with his trapped hand too. Might as well try to move a mountain.

_I am **not** going to die here, dammit. If this bastard strangles me, I know what will happen in two weeks days. I **can't** lose! _Despite the air being crushed from his lungs, he felt a growl building up in the pit of his throat, making his whole chest vibrate.

Spike took the vibration for a death rattle, and grinned in grim satisfaction. That would teach the fragging runt to mess with- He saw something flare behind the shades, but was suddenly distracted by the sudden agony shooting up his wrist.

Hans roared "GET OFF ME!" as he twisted the wrist in his hand and launched the stunned troll into the air. He let go of the broken wrist as Spike arced backwards and did a back roll into a crouch, cradling his injured wrist. Hans leaped to his feet, lungs working like a bellows and an incoherent rage burning in his blood. Hans charged forward, moving almost too fast to see, and slammed a blurring right cross into the troll's jaw, snapping his head around. He then dug his left fist into the troll's stomach doubling him forward and bringing his head down into the path of Han's rising knee. The troll's head snapped back and Hans rode the recoil into a spin and pistoned his heel backwards into exact center of the troll's sternum. Spike launched backwards through the air and slammed into the concrete wall hard enough to leave a visible spiderweb of cracks. He crumpled to the floor unconscious.

Hans took a step forward. "Enough!" the older troll's voice rumbled out. Hans froze at the command. "You have proven your point. Will you engage in needless slaughter?" Hans shook his head and tried to quell his anger. "You have the energy and passion of youth. But without wisdom to temper it, you will be little more than a danger to yourself and others. Will you indulge yourself or will you learn?"

Hans took a deep breath and blew it out. "I'm here to learn." He wiped the blood off his glasses, then turned and bowed to his new teacher.

A/N

Please drop me a review if you like this, or hate it.

This story grew out of a background piece I wrote for a fixer in my Shadowrun RPG campaign. No, he isn't exactly normal. But it's strictly within canon, and fit it into some loose ends from _Deutschland in der Shatten_ (Germany in the shadows), one of the IMO better regional sourcebooks.

Note: The paper and pencil rules are still published (Living Room Games bought the rights from FASA), and you can order them through Stiggybaby. I was so happy to find out that the line wasn't dropped when FASA went toes up!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Roland von Bremen was a Knight of the Black Forest. Hans gathered that it was some kind of title in the Troll Kingdom to the South, but wasn't sure how to ask. For reasons that he was cautioned not to ask, Roland was in exile here in Berlin, or on some kind of leave. None of the students knew, but they all speculated when he wasn't around. He made a living teaching various martial arts to the Orks and Trolls that could pass his tests. Hans was the first human to apply - most people don't seek to learn martial arts from sparring with Trolls. The method of testing was usually the same, unarmed combat with an existing student, but the criterion by which he judged the prospective students was unknown. Some who had won their fight were rejected, just as some who lost were accepted. It was generally held that "Old Roland" seemed to be more interested in how one conducted oneself, than in raw power. Hans was worried that his loss of temper would ruin his chances. However, after they had patched up Spike and had him resting comfortably, Roland told him to bring his gear to the warehouse.

The training was intensive, and lasted from early morning until late at night, but oddly enough, Hans had an easier time with the hardest parts. Roland's techniques emphasized speed and agility, as well as raw power. Hans was smaller and more agile than even the quickest Ork students, though he did not have as much casual strength. They discovered early enough that when he pushed himself, Hans could almost match the biggest students in raw strength. He made a special point of not going berserk again. Technique was another matter though.

While he could move well when reacting instinctively, when it came to planning out techniques and executing combinations, he was the rankest amateur. _He is an odd combination of proficiency and incompetence_, Roland thought to himself as he watched him practice with his other five students. The teacher was an impressive figure, despite that he wore a simple brown tunic and pants. A short beard complemented the leonine mane of salt-and-pepper hair, surmounted by two overarching horns. The deep-set eyes were a startling shade of dark purple, though few got close enough to notice. His students were a motley crew, none wore a uniform. Instead, each wore their normal street clothes. Roland taught them to defend themselves from- and to act in- the real world. To learn how to fight in special uniforms would defeat the practical reasons for the training. He nodded thoughtfully as his gaze wandered over the students as they practiced blocks and counters. The new one learned fast, and he was beginning to control his strength better. He watched him work with Gerd, one of the Ork students. Roland frowned. Something was wrong.

Gerd was pushing as hard as he could, and Roland was hard put to block everything in time. Gerd's punches and kicks were not getting completely blocked, and he was occasionally clipping Hans with a particularly strong attack. What was wrong with Hans? He called a halt to the exercise and told them to take a breather. He followed Hans to the water cooler.

Hans was sipping the cold water, relishing the chill on his tongue, when he sensed Roland behind him. He turned and nodded a greeting.

"You are holding back." It was a statement, not a question.

"I was still blocking him. He fights harder when he thinks he just barely missed knocking me down." Hans shrugged.

"You will not **ever** do such a thing here again!" Hans jumped at the bass rumble. He'd never heard Roland really angry before. "In this school you fight your hardest or you do not fight at all. You wish to join us, but then you practice such deception. I will not have it!"

Hans noticed the other students looking up. He tried to keep his voice low. "I didn't want to hurt his pride. Enough already resent me being here as it is."

"Hurt pride heals. A false sense of confidence is far deadlier than wounded pride. You would lead a fellow student down the path to their death, just to make your own way easier?"

"Hey! You are twisting it all around! I just don't want to make problems for you or-" but Roland cut him off.

"Maybe that's why you were invited in? **I** will be the judge of what is to be a problem. Not you. Maybe I want the other students to know what it is to face an adept, a magically augmented human? You perhaps did not think of this? No matter. Your part is simple: When I tell you to fight, you will fight. When I tell you to train, you will train. You will not hold back. If you cannot do this, then I will not have you here. Am I understood?"

"Yes Teacher!"

"Then get back out there, and you block as hard as you can, because some day you will need to be blocking as hard as you can, and some day Gerd will need to feel how hard his attacks can be blocked. Someday it will not be training!"

"Yes Teacher!"

When the break ended, Roland saw a marked change. Hans' hands flashed into the blocks so quickly that even his eye had trouble see more than a blur. Gerd tried to keep his arm straight, and his brawny shoulder muscles bunched up as the tried to drive his fist into the human's face. The crack of arm against arm carried across the training area, as Gerd was spun halfway around by the force of the blocks. The Ork growled and redoubled his efforts, but only managed to spin himself around more from the recoil. When it was Han's turn to attack, his first punch was so fast that Gerd did not even start his block before the knuckles lightly tapped his chin. Gerd reddened and the next punch was met in time, but his blocking arm bounced off Han's elbow without making it move that much. On the next count, Hans' shin brushed past a hasty low block and the ball of his foot tapped Gerd in the ribs. This continued through the exercise until, at the end, Gerd was visibly shaking with rage. Hans kept his face expressionless as he bowed to his partner, half expecting Gerd to lash out at him. The Ork bow perfunctorily and stalked off.

"Gerd!"

"Yes teacher!"

"What did you learn today?"

Gerd glared at Hans. "That he is too damn fast to hit."

"And?"

"And, teacher?"

"And what would happen if you tried to fight him?"

The Ork sighed. "I would probably lose, okay?"

"Yes, there is someone faster and stronger. Therefore if you fight him directly you will probably lose. Remember, everyone, there is always someone stronger and faster." The old trolls eyes unfocused and looked into the distance for a moment as his hand, unconsciously, pressed into his side. "You are here to make the most of your potential, but there will always be someone stronger and faster, so if you don't have anything to fall back on when that happens, you will die." The deep-set eyes looked around the room again. "That goes for everyone here."

Hans looked thoughtful; perhaps he had learned more than one lesson.

At the end of his first week at the school, their evening class was interrupted by an Ork child hammering at the access door. When they opened it, the child stumbled in clutching at Roland's leg whimpering about the bad men. Roland picked the child up and looked him in the eyes. The child calmed somewhat, and after a moment said that the White Skins had seized her family's residential block. Han's stomach rolled over. The White Skins were a notorious racist gang devoted to some idea of Aryan perfection. The last time he'd heard about them doing something like this, they had let the residents that passed their criterion out of the complex, then burned it to the ground with the rest inside.

He turned toward his teacher and saw an anger that mirrored his own. "Gather yourselves," Roland said simply, "We leave in 2 minutes."

Hans grabbed his longcoat and stuffed some slap-patches into the deep pockets. He stopped and drank a quart of water, wiping his mouth off as Roland called everyone to the door. He checked his armor as they gathered. Roland looked grim as he surveyed his students. With Spike gone back to the UCAS, he only had a handful of students, none of them very experienced, facing an unknown number of racist fanatics. There wasn't really time to contact any of his old pupils, and time was of the essence if they were to do anything. He cautioned the child to stay put and not open the door or touch anything until they got back. With that, he led his half dozen students out into the streets.

They unconsciously formed a ring around Roland as they advanced down the darkened streets. After less than half a mile they could hear the yelling in the distance. As they got closer, they could hear screams mixed in with harsh shouts chanting slogans. Getting to the actual residential block meant going around a heavily guarded industrial park. Hans could feel the wary eyes of the guards upon them as they passed. He couldn't remember being part of a team like this before, a piece of something larger, more dangerous. The guards were afraid. He could feel them relax slightly as the passed them by. Finally, they turned unto Rutgenstrasse, the road that residential block opened onto. Two more blocks and they walked into a scene that wouldn't look out of place in the anterooms of hell.

The residential complex had the look typical of public housing. It was a blocky structure, comprised of prefabricated ferroconcrete pieces, angular, unlovely, and possessing all the warmth of prison cell. This one had all the windows shot out, and an overturned car blocking the only entrance Hans could see. Screams of fear and pain echoed from within, punctuated by bursts of small arms fire from the crowd in the streets whenever there was movement at a window. The only undamaged vehicles in the street were a pair of cargo vans and a old Ares Citymaster riot control vehicle that had seen better days. The water-cannon in the cupola on top of the Citymaster had been replaced with a pair of heavy machine guns.

Milling around the vehicles, yelling epithets at the ugly building and occasionally taking pot-shots at the inhabitants, were about two dozen humans. Some were wearing leathers and gang colors, others heavier armor. All of them had their trademark inset glass plates in their skulls. None of them seemed to be too heavily armed; a few pistols and a lot of knives and clubs, but Hans glanced warily at the turreted machine guns on the Citymaster.

Most of them had their attention focused on the building. Some of them were rolling ominous-looking steel drums from the two vans over to the walls of the housing block. Roland waved his hand forward and they spread out and advanced on the mob. Hans was brimming with adrenaline and anger, and he clenched his fists tighter and started to gather himself to charge.

"Welcome, Herr Bremer." The voice rang out from the Citymaster in the middle of the mob. Even with the amplification, it almost purred with smug overtones.

Roland paused, obviously surprised. "Hoffman?"

"We have been waiting for you and your merry troglodytes to make an appearance." The oily voice gloated. "Did you think to find us as unprepared as at our last meeting? I am afraid you will be disappointed, _mein herr_."

At that, five of the men near the vans dropped their clubs and reached into the open cargo doors. They pivoted quickly, withdrawing what at first looked like oversized rifles. When they set the recoil plates against their hips and turned the weapons toward Roland, holding them up by dual handles near the center, Hans recognized them. Assault Cannons, basically recoilless rifles that fired explosive shells. Probably the largest caliber man-portable weapon on the planet. The White Skins between them and the students quickly moved out of the line of fire.

"Goodbye, Herr Brem-"

'NO!" Hans charged forward, staying low, darting left and right as he advanced on the gunners, hoping to throw off their aim. He felt, rather than saw, two shells go past, but the third gunner to fire was either luckier, or more experienced. His shell exploded into the pavement near Hans' feet. He felt the sting on his exposed face and hands as needle-sharp bits of metal dug into his flesh. Worse, the shockwave lifted him off his feet for a second, leaving him vulnerable and unable to change direction as the last two gunners fired. Hans' world was obliterated in a flash of white light.

Scene Break

The first thing that returned to him was the thick taste of blood in his mouth. He tried to spit the gummy mass out of his mouth, but something was keeping him from turning his head. He coughed jerkily, and heard a grating sound close by as something pressing down on his chest shifted. It was so dark that he couldn't tell if is his eyes were open or not. The air was thick with dust. He tried to sit up, and realized with the return of bodily sensations that his arms and legs were trapped too. Fighting a rising panic, he concentrated on lifting up his right arm, ignoring the aches and pains reawakening in his chest. More grinding noises, then a clatter of what sounded like stones as the weight shifted and the pressure left his arm. He felt his fingers break into free air, and realized that he was partially buried in debris. He used his free hand to claw away some of the material above his head, as he shifted his left arm in closer to give him leverage to sit up.

Movement awakened more pain, but a claustrophobic panic was eroding his control. His right hand got hold of the corner of a large mass, and as he slid it back he finally saw something besides blackness. Finally he jerked himself upright, coughing up more dust and spitting blood. When he got his breathing back under control, he realized that the rough fragments around him were shattered cinderblocks. He slowly gathered himself and pushed more of the debris off his legs. He had to roll partly onto his left side and jam his fingers under the edge of a large section of wall to lever it up far enough for him to slide his trapped left arm out. When he was done he was filthy, bruised, and battered, but mobile and essentially in one piece. Dim light filtered in from a large jagged opening in the wall at his feet. Hans stared at it stupidly for a moment before he realized that he must have made the hole when he was thrown backward. He slowly looked down at himself.

His longcoat was gone and all that remained of his vest were some fragments of melted ferro-plast that were imbedded in the skin near his left shoulder and the upper right quadrant of his abdomen. The fragments were arranged in roughly circular patterns, and as far as he could tell they marked the impacts. Hans took a deep shuddering breath. Those losers must have been using cheap ammo. By all rights, two direct hits from those monsters should have dismembered him, if not simply pulverized him. Although his ears were still ringing, he thought he could hear screaming, and an ominous crackling sound. He lurched unsteadily to his feet and stumbled toward the light.

The front of the residential block caught his eye first. It was a solid mass of flames, with torrents of dark smoke pouring out of the windows. The screams were coming from there, but they grew fainter by the second. There was a loud bang of cannon-fire from the street, and Hans tore his eyes away from the massacre.

The corner of one of the delivery vans disappeared in a ball of flame as Roland leaped backwards off the top. Hans couldn't see any of the other students still up. Gerd was motionless in the street near the warehouse Hans had been thrown into. A spreading pool of blood under the Ork indicated that he probably wasn't getting up again. Hans shuffled into the street like a broken marionette. All of the White Skins attention was focused on bringing Roland down. Half of Gerd's head was gone. Hans kept moving, his stride getting smoother as blood returned to his legs, along with the pain.

Roland was putting on quite a show. His teacher's tunic was streaked with blood, some of it his, as he wove between the vehicles. He never gave the assault cannons a clean shot, and picked off any White Skins who came within his long reach. Hans wondered why they didn't just move them to get a clear shot, but then he noticed the signpost jutting out of the front grille of the Citymaster. The big truck wasn't going anywhere soon. Whenever the gunners spread out to cover both sides of a van, Roland would leap over it, or onto the other one. Evidently on one of these acrobatic trips he'd take the time to kick the machine guns so that one barrel was bent into the other. So far, the White Skins hadn't gotten a good hit on him yet, as much due to their own disorganization as anything. Hans could only count four gunners now, so they may have gotten one already. But Roland's luck would have to run out soon. As Roland ran between the two vans, he paused listening. Suddenly he slammed his shoulder high up into the side of the damaged one, rocking it up off its wheels. The massive troll wrapped his fingers under the splash panel and with a mighty heave flipped it over on its side. The tumbling vehicle crushed several White Skins, including one of the pair of gunners racing to cut him off. The other one however had jumped back in time. With a curse, he swung the cannon over at Roland and triggered it point-blank.

Roland got both his hands up and there was a bright flash of blue light as the round detonated, somewhat short of the target. Roland was nonetheless thrown backwards off his feet. The back of his head slammed into the side of the moribund Citymaster with a loud thump. The remaining White Skins gathered for the kill as Roland slid to his knees, dazed.

Hans was moving forward before he even realized what he was doing, adrenalin washing the grit from his joints. There was no time for grandstanding or the old Troll would be dead... for trying to save metahuman families from burning alive. One of the remaining gunners was moving up to finish Roland off, the other hanging back to cover. The big guns were too bulky to use in close quarters, and they'd learned to be wary. But not wary enough.

There was one White Skin with a pistol with the covering the closest gunner. He looked back and forth from Roland to the burning building. He didn't hear Hans come up behind him until a filthy hand clamped over his mouth, fingers digging into the jaw, as another hand gripped his shoulder. Hans broke the man's neck with one savage twist and eased the body quietly to the ground.

The Gunner in front of him didn't notice, his attention was focused on the scene in front of him. He was yelling at his comrades to stay out of the line of fire, _verdammit_, because he'd shoot through them if that hell-spawned Troglodyte got up again. He was cut off, literally, as Hans grabbed his cannon from behind and chopped the heel of his hand into the man's throat.

Hans felt cartilage crush and bone snap under his hand as the man spun away like a broken doll. He hauled the heavy cannon to his hip and braced the recoil pad like he'd seen the gunners do, then started firing.

Hans had decided to aim high, to minimize the chance that he might miss a target and hit Roland. This was a good thing, because he found that he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. He tried to hit the last gunner, but managed to punch a couple of holes in the side of the battered Citymaster and lace some of the remaining White Skin rabble with shrapnel. His target spun after the first explosion and fired back, but Hans had at least rattled him enough with the near misses to make him miss too.

Hans gritted his teeth and tried to correct for his last miss, which was harder than it looked with a hip-fired weapon. He pulled the firing yoke, but this time there was just a loud click. Out of ammo or jammed, it didn't make a difference. He leaped to the side as a shell transited the space where he'd been standing an instant earlier. Growling in frustration, he lifted the cannon above his head and threw it, sideways, at the last gunner, who was smoothly pivoting the barrel of his gun to line it up on Hans again.

Surprisingly enough, the barrel of Han's cannon caught him across the forehead with a sickening crunch. He slumped to the ground, and lay there, one foot twitching slightly. The remaining White Skins scattered. Hans took a deep breath and walked over to Roland.

His teacher was a mass of cuts and bruises, but his eyes were blinking rapidly and he seemed to be coming back to himself. Hans threw an arm over his shoulder and was able to help him get to his feet. He never heard the door to the City master open.

"A very impressive performance, my young friend. It is a pity you have chosen to betray your race."

Hans half-turned, still supporting a good bit of Roland's weight. A middle-aged human with aristocratic features and wavy blond hair, gone slightly grey at the temples was stepping out of the Citymaster. He was wearing a uniform of some sort, with a boxy cloth bag on a shoulder strap and a large pistol. The latter was aimed squarely between Hans' eyes.

"Do you really think that's going to do you any good? Besides waking Roland up?" He nodded toward the pistol.

The older man shrugged. 'If it is not sufficient, then I am sure this satchel charge will be." He hefted the bag and Hans felt his stomach clench. He forced himself to smile.

"You'd better hope so. Because you have no idea what I will do to you if you don't get out of here right now."

"That, my young friend, was a rather pathetic bluff."

'Is it?" Hans asked, smiling. "Take a good look at me. I haven't had a particularly good day so far, and I'd be glad to take it out on you." Something was wrong... something had changed. He realized that the screaming had stopped. He glanced at the burning building.

"Ah... Well, you are not having as bad a day as some, it would seem. Shocking how slow Emergency Services is in getting here, isn't it? Of course, it's even more surprising how far a few Deutschmarks will go when bribing telecom admins to mis-route a few calls. A pity."

As Hans watched and the horrified realization broke _We're too late, they're all dead._ There was a low rumble and loud snapping noise as the roof slowly collapsed inward.

'Young man, you are interfering with things far beyond you. There are powers at work that _will_ see this nation cleansed. Working with us will guarantee your future. Working against us is sealing your own doom... and you don't look that foolish to me, eh?"

Hans turned back around, tears starting to blur his vision. _He had failed again... innocent people were hurt, this time dead, because he had failed. _His imagination, normally fairly active, was working overtime now. He saw children dying screaming in the fire. He saw mothers trying to protect them and failing. He saw all of them dying in his mind's eye. Dying because he had failed.

Hans looked at the man who had masterminded their deaths. He had failed, but this man had worked to get them killed. Lusted after their slaughter. Hans eased Roland off his shoulder and took a step forward.

When he saw Hans' face, Hoffman flinched back. Those eyes... it was like looking into hell. Or watching hell look at you. He hadn't even realized he was stepping back until he stumbled into the steps that led up into the Citymaster. Roland was standing unsteadily on his own while Hans deliberately took one step after another towards him. He raised his pistol unsteadily.

Hans was moving even before he fired. He blurred to the side as he dove forward, and the bullet raised a welt of burned skin on top of his shoulder. Hans closed his fingers around the wrist above the gun and deliberately crushed it to pulp. Grinding the torn muscle and bone chips together even after the pistol had dropped from nerveless fingers. He saw the fingers of the free hand fluttering toward the top of the shoulder bag. "Roland!" He yelled, "get clear!"

Hoffman's hand plunged into the bag, his face twisted in a mixture of terror and pain. From the corner of his eye, Hans saw Roland clambering over the overturned van. Hans released the ruined wrist, even as he pivoted into a spinning roundhouse kick. He bent his supporting leg into a deep squat then straightened it as he spun. The kick angled upward into the side of Hoffman's hip like a thunderbolt and Hans leaped backwards arching over the van himself. Hoffman's hip shattered like fine porcelain and he was catapulted upward and into the entryway of the Citymaster. His left hand closed around the detonator as he slammed into the interior wall with bone-crunching force.

Hans was still in the air when the explosion split the Citymaster open like a tin can, and the shockwave carried him well over the second van and almost into the burning residential complex. Half-stunned, he barely managed to not land on his head. After a moment, he was able to sit up, then stand. Roland was looking up from behind the over-turned van.

As he'd hoped, going off inside the reinforced hull of the Citymaster had damped down a lot of the explosion's force. Of course, it hadn't done the Citymaster a bit of good. All that was left of it was a twisted chassis sitting in it's own funeral pyre. He stumbled over to Roland. The Troll had never looked older than when he looked back from the burning building and shook his head.

The trip back took considerably longer, both due to lack of urgency, and their injuries. Neither of them spoke. When they returned to the warehouse, the door was slightly ajar and the troll child was gone.

Scene Break

Hans laid awake for most of the night. He was battered and sore, but it was his emotional turmoil that was really keeping him up. He re-played the battle over and over again, trying to figure out how he might have done it right. He almost welcomed the pain when he started digging the melted armor fragments out of his torso. None had penetrated very deeply, but they still required some work with a knife and tweezers to get them out. And anything he felt was a pale reflection of what had happened to the people he had failed. Burned alive in their own homes...

After a couple of hours of restless slumber, Roland woke him. Hans sat up, took a deep breath and reluctantly looked up at Roland. His teacher was similarly a mass of bruises, and it looked like he had spent no small amount of time with a medi-kit as well.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Hans sighed, and shrugged. "Not much to talk about is there? I screwed up. People died."

"You sound as if you are responsible."

"I am. I went off half-cocked. Got knocked out. By the time I came to, it was too late for those poor bastards."

"Ah, so it was all up to you, was it?"

Hans paused. "No... but I should have been able to stop it. Do something."

"Hans, the ones who are truly responsible are those despicable racists who set the fire. I've had run-ins with Hoffman before. He was waiting for us... this was a very elaborate trap, with bait we could not refuse. Effectively, those people were dead the minute the White Skins arrived. Consider it fate, if you will..."

"No! I cannot accept that!"

"What should you have done, then?"

"I don't know... maybe flanked around, not charged right at the gunners. Been a little smarter... something!"

Roland sighed. "Hans, that distraction when you charged them is the only reason we were not all cut down on the spot. Understand this, boy, Hoffman was _waiting_ for us. He knew approximately how many students I had. He had a fair idea of my abilities. It was a good plan until you panicked the gunners. By the time they had hit you, I was on top of the Citymaster and about half of the students had taken cover." The troll smiled faintly, if painfully. "They fought well."

"Not well enough." Hans growled.

Roland frowned. "They died bravely and well, trying to save others. There are far worse ways to die."

"But those people still died. No better than if we had never even shown up...We failed."

"Not entirely. The White Skins will not boast of this victory, and Hoffman was a powerful man, in addition to being a despicable racist. The world is a better place with him gone. And you did save my life, at least."

Hans looked up, but said nothing.

"If you choose to assume responsibility for everything bad that happens around you, I can guarantee you a miserable, guilt-ridden life. The ones truly responsible for that atrocity are dead, due in no small part to your actions. Those you cannot save, you can at least sometimes avenge. Sometimes that has to be enough."

"It isn't." Hans took the folded credstick printouts out of his duffel bag and handed them to Roland. Roland quickly scanned through them.

"This is pretty bad... is this why you wanted to train?"

"It's part of the reason. I can't keep operating on reflexes and luck. I need to **know** what I am doing. I've got a little more than a week left now... but I'm starting to think that this is just delusions of grandeur on my part. I couldn't save one person in that apartment complex... what makes me think I will do any better next time?" Hans shrugged, looking defeated.

Roland's brows knitted together. "Having aspirations isn't foolish. Wallowing in doubt and self-pity, on the other hand... Get the hell up off that cot!"

Hans looked up, but did not move. The backhand blow from Roland was as stunning as it was unexpected. Hans skidded to a stop near the middle of the training area. As he climbed to his feet, Roland stalked toward him, a faint blue shimmer outlining his bulk. The troll wasn't shouting, but his words reverberated in the empty warehouse and made Hans' bruises ache, "I will need to return to my people soon, to bring word of Hoffman's actions, as well as seek allies for what is to come. You have a little more than a week. I can take the next six days to teach you as much as I can... but if you give up on me I will make it feel like six months, do I make myself clear?"

Hans dropped into a ready stance. "Yes Teacher!" he shouted back.

A/N

By request, I've posted everything I've written on poor Hans. (I actually wrote this a couple of years ago… possibly as part of a hand-out for someone researching the character's background.)

From the responses I'm getting, going forward I'll be focusing most of my time on the Blackwand Chronicles until they are done. However, I _do_ know where this story is going, so I can get it done eventually. )

PS – Bonus Points (or your name used for a character) if anyone can email me with Hans' secret.


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